lhjz said:
hi guys
any expert IT guys here?
need some advice on building my own CPU
used to DIY(3yrs ago) but lost touch liao
main usage will be photo editing and storage
1.P4 3.2GHZ enuff?
2.mainboard brand?
3.at least 1GB RAM
4.HDD brand? 2x160MB or 1x300MB better? as 2 HDD cost slightly less than 1 big HDD
5.VGA card brand?
6.DVD RW brand?
7.casing and cooler?
the rest are not so important i suppose
thx in advance
3.2GHz Prescott (1MB cache) is definitely enough for most graphics editing.
Motherboard: Depending on the features you need, I'd recommend MSI, Abit or Asus. All 3 have good warranty service and are fairly reliable.
1GB of ram should suffice. If you can afford it, 2GB wouldn't hurt either. But I'd rather spend the money on a Western Digital Raptor 74GB, 10K RPM HDD.
HDD. 2 x 160GB is always better than a single 300GB. They'd run faster as the drive(s) fill up and there's redundancy.
For video card, it's a personal thing. If you do not play games, getting a Powercolor or Sapphire Radeon 9600 will give better image quality than a cheap Nvidia card. If you want even better image quality, go for a 3DLabs Wildcat VP560 or a Matrox P650 or Parhelia.
For DVD-RW, you can get a TDK or Samsung or Sony. Just don't buy any Acer/ Benq writer.
Do you need a quiet computer?
If so, get a Coolermaster Hyper-48 heatsink fan for the CPU. It's dead silent and cools well enough.
Don't get psychoed into buying some other cooler just because it'd cool the processor more. You are not looking to overclock the processor.
The Hyper-48 is inaudible once the case is closed and keeps the processor cool enough.
For the PSU, get a Targan. Also very quiet. The casing I'd recommend is the Antec Super LanBoy. It's an aluminium case with 2 120mm fans. One in the front cooling the HDD's and one exhausting hot air at the back. 120mm fans move more air than multiple 80mm fans and yet, are much more quiet.
I'm personally using a Prescott 3GHz (Socket 478) w/ MSI 865PE Neo 2 motherboard & 1GB of dual-channel DDR-DRAM. My casing is the Super Lanboy. Still using the stock Intel cooler but will be swapping to a Hyper-48 soon.
I helped to do up the following configuration for a fellow forumer, av98m. He can attest to it's silence. (We're both audio enthusiast with our audio setups near our PC's, hence, the computers have to be very quiet)
Prescott 3GHz (LGA 775)
MSI 865PE Neo 3 motherboard
1GB of dual-channel DDR-DRAM
ATI Radeon 9800 VGA card
Cooler Master Hyper-48 CPU cooler
Antec Super Lanboy casing
Targan 380W PSU
FYI, on my rig, I've managed to work on 1 x 48MP file w/ 60 layers. Each layer has a 4MP image and the 60 4MP image files were still loaded in PS.
There was a slight lag of about 0.5s but it was still bearable.. I don't think you'd push your computer that hard, would you?